Everton don’t need to panic… just yet.

The Toffees haven’t spent a penny this transfer window and are the only team in the professional English leagues not to have brought in a player. Luckily they have one of the best managers in the country and an impressive first XI. Although desperately in need for investment, fans don’t need to be alarmed at this present moment, the club still have a squad capable to get them a top half finish, and with a decent start, possibly a Europa League place.

What fans do need to keep a tab on is the impending financial state, in an interview with Bill Kenwright, the chairman revealed that the club cannot borrow any more money from the bank, if that situation continues the club will not be able to pay off its debt and could fall into administration.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, in the form of the young Ross Barkley, hailed the new “Rooney”, by Louis Saha, he has burst onto the scene at Goodison Park, catching the eyes of pundits and fans across the country, he is another example along with Rodwell that our academy can produce quality players and if it comes to it, they can be sold to cover the debts. But that will be a last resort.

It’s clear that Everton need investment, but the fans need not panic at the moment, the club have one of the best managers for the job and an experienced and capable squad of players. It’s the future that needs be planned for. 

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Predictions and round-up of Pre-season

That’s right! I’m back, for the many 1000’s of readers this blog has accumulated I thank you for returning for another season. Okay bit of an overstatement but this blog has reached more hits than I thought it would so I have to thank you for that.

I probably should’ve done this before the season started, but my team Everton haven’t actually started yet so I have forgiven myself. But yes as you probably have realised, the football season is back and that means only one thing, I’ve done a fantasy football team that will inevitably end up in the lower 60,000^th position.

But before I bring you my pearls of wisdom about the ultimate team I have picked, let’s get my predictions for the Premier League out of the way. As always, I think that Manchester United will once again walk away with this year’s title and reach the 20 titles milestone.

It baffles me how United can lose their high profile players and replace them with sometimes unknown players who can step up to the plate and become household names, I think this is what makes Sir Alex one of the best managers in history.

If you saw the West Brom match, you could see how well Ashley Young fitted in to the team and how, not on this occasion as such but how Nani has filled that Ronaldo shaped hole at Old Trafford that no-one thought he could.

So this is how I think the Premier League will pan out in the end.

1^st. Manchester United

2^nd. Manchester City

3^rd. Chelsea

4^th. Liverpool

5^th. Arsenal

6^th. Tottenham

7^th. Everton

8^th. Sunderland

9^th. Bolton

10^th.Villa

11^th.Fulham

12^th.Stoke

13^th.Newcastle

14^th. West Brom

15^th.Blackburn

16^th. Wolves

17^th. Norwich

18^th. QPR

19^th. Wigan

20^th. Swansea

We’ll see how wrong I am in the season round up in mid-2012.

Onto the Fantasy Football team, now I’m not normally any good at these, but this season I’ve decided to put some thought into it. See what you make of my team.

GK. Cech

DF. Baines

DF. S. Taylor

DF. Huth

DF. Samba

MD. Walcott

MD. Silva

MD. Dempsey

MD. Nani

ST. Bent

ST. Aguero

So the blog is finally back for the season, I’ll try and keep as up to date as possible, but since I’m not getting paid for this and I have a minimal audience, I am under no obligation to.

Leave your comments and abuse in the section below.

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Just a small note to West Ham fans

If your new manager, who has a reputation for long ball play openly claims that your club will look to grind out results away and play 'Wenger' football at home, then you have a real problem.

If you play "long ball" football, then you are falling into the championship trap, they will be more used to defending hoofs than Premier League clubs are, and for West Ham playing "attractive" football at home, don't get me started, they don't have the players and after Parker, the only single person that was desperately dragging them anywhere close to safety leaves, then you have no chance.

Good luck to the Hammers, I'm sure the Olympic Stadium will be wonderful when they are blessed with teams like Doncaster and Scunthorpe.

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Villas-Boas - the double barrelled surname on everyone’s lips

Well, it’s become more of an anniversary than anything, because the start of the season normally means another manager arriving through the revolving doors at Stamford Bridge, they usually end up back the other way by May. But do we have someone different in Mr. Villas-Boas? Is this a new tactic employed by Abramovich? Well on the face of it, no. Many expect the inexperienced ex-Porto man to be fired before the end of his 3 year contract, mainly because that is the trend that Abramovich follows, but trends are there to be broken, I’m sure Arsene will be hoping that will be the case this season.

For us to understand whether this is a good appointment or not we need to go further than, “Abramovich sacks everyone”. It’s a different kind of selection on Roman’s part, whereas previous seasons he has looked for experience to try and bring him that all elusive Champions League glory. But as you may have gathered Andres is younger than Chelsea’s reserve keeper Hilario. Whether that means he won’t have any authority within the camp is a different question.

In Villas-Boas we have a young upcoming manager that already has proven himself in the Portuguese League, of course we know that the heady heights of the Premier League are completely different to Portuguese football. I believe that he can adapt, the man seems very intelligent and has already worked at Chelsea as the head scout and that didn’t do enough to put him off returning so we know he has the drive.

It all comes down to whether Abramovich has got it through into his head yet that sacking managers year after year just doesn’t work, if he gives Villas-Boas time then we could see trophies returning to Stamford Bridge, but the pessimist in me think that we have seen this all before and the inevitable “Villas-Go-as” headlines will be appearing in several poor tabloid newspapers.

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Roll on 50 years of hurt

Well I’m getting tired of saying it, but that was a disappointment, the performance of the England under 21 team in Denmark was just a little short of a disgrace and they will know it. I thought Pearce got his tactics all wrong, the fact that we set out to emulate Spain and not play to our strengths says it all. The need for us to continually pass the ball back to Frankie Fielding was a mystery. There was no movement from the players and our best attacker was Phil Jones.

Surprisingly Jones looked very good going forward and I wonder whether playing him in a centre defensive midfield position would have suited him better. I was also quite surprised that Jack Rodwell didn’t get more of an opportunity, fair enough, he didn’t have the greatest of seasons at Goodison but his appearance in the Ukraine game showed that he was performing better than Muamba and Mancienne.

I just think that some of these players will never be good enough to make the move into the first team, they just didn’t show enough quality or desire and just didn’t look like they were vaguely interested in playing together.

One final point I’d like to pick up on was Pearce’s tactic to play two holding central midfielders in all 3 matches, especially in the final match where we had to win in order to progress. The combination of Mancienne and Henderson showed no ambition and created a gulf between the midfield and the strikers, meaning Welbeck was isolated and Sturridge had to keep coming deep to receive the ball.

To be honest with you the future looks bleak for England, but don’t let me bring you down, just watch them for yourself.

Twitter: @andyelement

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There is no news!

Well as all you keen readers will have seen, I haven't wrote anything in a while, mainly down to exams and lack of ideas. But the Blog will be back to usual when the new season begins, there may be a few transfer related posts and others, but don't get upset without your weekly hearsay.

Normal service shall resume in August.

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Crisis? What Crisis?

The words of our good friend Mr Blatter there who tonight was rewarded for his corrupt antics with another 4 years in office. Yes that’s right, he’s like the George Bush of the footballing world, nobody wanted him but the other option was, well nobody.

And here I go again with my radical ideas again, we don’t need FIFA, we can become self-sufficient in our own footballing federation and make England great again. Sound like any fascist dictator of the 1930’s? No? Well without taking any more ideas from Nazi ideology I continue…

We obviously aren’t the most popular footballing nation going at the moment, the Argies don’t like us because they think handballing is fine, the Germans don’t like us because “ze ball did not crozz ze line!” and let’s not go back to the Nazis again… I promise no more of ze impressions....

And of course FIFA doesn’t like us because we like to do things fairly (sort of), well fairer than them anyway. As with any institution if you give someone at the top all the power they will change things to benefit them, I can't blame FIFA for the bribes they take, they are only human and greed will always be a factor in anyone's life but it shouldn't have been allowed to have gone this far, there needs to be reform and we shall start with the head of the corrupt organisation and work our way down.

I don't normally agree with anything The Sun writes, but they want to give Blatter the boot and so do I and although it pains me to say, I agree with The Sun, im just not as radically racist.

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The End of Season Review

Everyone else has done one so why can’t I? So here we are at the tail end of another eventful season. Some would say that it was the best season in Premier League history, certainly true in the fact that West Ham have finally been relegated, how you can be £80 million pounds in debt and then drag Newham Council (The poorest council in the world…. Okay London) to hand over another £40 million pounds for a scheme devised by the new crazy gang, no not AFC Wimbledon (by the way good luck to them for restoring Wimbledon to the Football League) but Gold, Sullivan and Brady, I would call them a threesome but I think that has already been devised by Gold in one of his many pornographic collections.

They will fail… inevitably, Alan Sugar said it and now I am saying it too, it can’t fundamentally work, West Ham fans will be dejected and they will be in the Championship (or maybe League 1 but one can only hope) the season they will move in to the Olympic Stadium, it was supposed to be a sign of new times for the club, but as fans realise what the owners have done to their club, they will quickly realise that watching the club lose from 100 feet away will be even more disappointing than it was at Upton Park. Now I’ve got that little rant from my system let us continue.

In a sense that little mini explosion of my mind was aimed at someone I know and they will know it too… Dan, but I digress….

It has been a season of ups and downs but universally we will all agree that it will feel like we have lost a piece of ourselves with no Blackpool for the upcoming season, it has now become a cliché but they have been a breath of fresh air, and watching Ian Holloway’s press conferences have been such a difference from the bleak, suicide inducing drivel of Wenger and Ferguson, when your manager starts singing in the middle of his interview then you know you’ve got someone good.

In terms of “the best season ever” I would have to say yes for entertainment but no for performance, mainly because of Manchester United’s pathetic away form and Chelsea’s decision to throw away the title by sacking Ray Wilkins, to be honest I never thought the “Stay on your feet” guy would have such an impact on a team, but what do I know…

But to keep with tradition I have brought in the End of Season Awards:

Best performance of the season: Newcastle 4-4 Arsenal (4 nil down at half time, no-one saw this happening)

Team of the season: Blackpool (for the pre mentioned reasons)

Arse of the season: Roman Abramovich (Torres for £50 million and a sacked Ancelotti, as Paul Merson would say “He has had a shocker”)

Class of the season: Scott Parker (He plays for West Ham, and I like him, need I say more?)

And finally I thought I’d look back on my predictions for the season I made:

Winners: Man United (I felt like an idiot when Chelsea won their first 6 games 20-0)

Everton: 7^th (I felt like an idiot when we were second bottom for what felt like a year)

Relegated: Blackpool, West Ham and West Brom (I felt like an idiot when Blackpool were beating everyone)

FA Cup: Manchester City ( No I’m just kidding, I said Chelsea, what an idiot I am)

Beckford v Piquionne: Beckford (Just in case you were wondering what this is, I had a bet with someone over who would score more goals, of course I won, but I have yet to get my winnings….)

So it’s all over, we just have the Transfer Window and next season to look forward to, the fun begins here…

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West Ham Post - Coming Soon

I shall be slagging off everyone at Upton Park sometime soon...

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Respect, You want Respect?

If your going to preach about something, then you'd better make sure your are not a hypocrite. You can't expect someone to respect you if you show no example of leadership, It just doesn't work, its why Gordon Brown never made a good Prime Minister, no one respected him and he didn't have a good enough attitude for the job. But JFK had charisma, enthusiasm and he wasn't but ugly, so people respected and didn't write him off in an instant.

In some sort of way that links to my point, the FA and the Football League do not warrant respect with the constant courage less decisions they consistently continue to make, this whole QPR situation should have been settled long ago.

The man in question, Alejandro Faurlin didn't even sign this season, he joined the club in 2009. The Football League just have themselves to blame in this situation, they claimed the reason that they didn't give QPR a points deduction was that it was too late in the season for them to act because of the impending playoff fixtures that could not be rescheduled. Well who's fault is that.

The Football League are responsible for the age that it has taken them to deal with this, and they don't even take proper action, and £875,000 for one of the richest teams in England is pittance. There should have been a points deduction and it should have been last year, you can't have one rule for West Ham and one for QPR just because it suits you better if you just sweep it under the carpet.

No wonder that no one respects them, they don't deserve respect, they never use their powers to rescind red cards that are blatantly not even yellows and they don't hand them out when they are deserved, yet the insist on fining Ian Holloway for fielding a weakened team, even though Wenger does it in the Carling Cup and Ferguson rotates his squad every week, the FA cannot judge the quality of Holloway's team when they have said that he can have a 25 man squad and play anyone of them.

 When you ask for respect the first rule is don't contradict yourself (not that there's a rulebook), but if there was the FA obviously haven't read their it.

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